


Sweet Disposition; Soonhoon

by kwanies



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M, Pining, Soonhoon - Freeform, i really don't know how to tag this, is it angst ??? is it fluff ????, it has a happy ending i promise, that's the vibe, think like. late night drives and melancholy soonhoon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 15:13:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17490293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwanies/pseuds/kwanies
Summary: Soonyoung can’t remember it, the shift between friends and something a little more. He remembers pining, a stuttering heartbeat for every gaze met and a constant flurry of nerves, he remembers thinking of Jihoon in a way he never had before; but he can’t remember when that became a two-way thing.What he knows, though, is that it’s hard to not be scared when someone else has your heart in their hands.





	Sweet Disposition; Soonhoon

**Author's Note:**

> a quick little thing i wrote at like. 1am because i couldn't sleep - it's quite short and incredibly rough (i barely proofread it rip) and there isn't really any serious plot to it ?? it's really directionless ??? but i had the idea and wanted to get it out So
> 
> sweet disposition though !! that's a song !! it's really lovely and i listened to it the whole time i was writing this ;(
> 
> apologies for any mistakes !! i kinda just cranked this out in like 2 hours and skimmed over it when i was finished so i really wouldn't be surprised if i missed something - the pacing's also kind of off but uhhhhh i didn't want to turn this into an overnight thing ?? i hope that doesn't bother you too much skjdhfjjdhf

Soonyoung’s mind can only register one thing, one thing only - Jihoon, swaying on his feet and two inches away from his face. He’s not drunk, neither one of them is, but something about the moment feels far from sober. Detached from reality, that’s what.

“Thanks for coming,” Soonyoung says, and there’s fog between their mouths, a fine mist just barely caught in that short distance between them. “You didn’t have to, I know it’s late, but you did.”

“I wasn’t gonna leave you hanging.”

“You could. I wouldn’t blame you.”

Jihoon rolls his eyes and makes a small noise, something like a whine, before knocking Soonyoung’s chest lightly. For a second, Soonyoung wonders if Jihoon can feel his heart knocking right back.

“How terrible do you think I am? You could call me at five in the morning and I’d still be rolling out of bed to come see you, you know.”

It’s a short streak of color, something brief and vivid flashing around them - red, like Jihoon’s cheeks, red like his lips, dotted yellow like the words he says - and then it’s gone. Back to that disconnected blue, the way the stars shine silver overhead. When Jihoon speaks, when he says those kind types of things, it’s like there’s a rope tugging Soonyoung’s heart back into orbit.

When he’s quiet, though, Soonyoung feels as if he’s floating.

Just them and their breathing. The night echoes around them, and Soonyoung’s fading in and out of association. During these quiet hours, with just that bit of space between their hands and their hearts, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t.

So, just to be sure, Soonyoung reaches up and cups Jihoon’s face; brushes his cheeks with his thumbs and feels the skin, notes the way the boy swallows. He says, “Tell me something,” and Jihoon’s gaze barely wavers.

“You first.”

Nine and a half things go running through Soonyoung’s mind in that instant - _you’re pretty, I like your hair when it’s messy like this, your voice makes my chest feel warm and I like you, you’re lovely, and I like you, please say something, say anything, just so I can hear you_ -

“Can you feel your feet on the ground?”

Jihoon blinks, eyes folding under the weight of his eyebrows pinched together, and he stomps his feet a little. Once, twice, and then, “Pretty solid, yeah.”

“Are you totally sure?”

Instead of answering, Jihoon asks, “Can you?”

Soonyoung looks at his hands, still holding steady, and he nods. “Yeah. Solid.”

He’s not sure how they end up in Jihoon’s car - it happens sometime between Soonyoung’s hands on his face and their fingers locked over the cupholder - but that’s where they are now, and Jihoon’s mumbling something about being hungry. He’s got his eyes trained on the road, and Soonyoung’s got his eyes trained on him. It’s good, he thinks, that heart rates don’t count against the speed limit.

“Thanks for coming,” he whispers, and Jihoon laughs a little.

“You already said that. Thanks for not getting on my case for skipping dinner.”

“You really shouldn’t do that,” he says, “but I can remind you later. Anyways, I’ll thank you ten more times, that’s how much I mean it. I didn’t even have a good reason for calling, this time.”

Jihoon’s voice is soft when he speaks, “You wanted to see me. I think that’s a good enough reason.”

Soonyoung wonders, not for the first time, what to make of that. What to make of _this_. When Jihoon says things like that, all tender-hearted and pure and so different to his usual disposition, what’s it supposed to mean?

Friendly sentiment, maybe. Jihoon’s got one hand on the wheel and the other locked around Soonyoung’s pinky, and maybe that’s just friendly. Jihoon wants to see him sometimes, maybe that’s just friendly.

“What’s on your mind?”

“You,” Jihoon answers honestly, and Soonyoung _knows_ that’s not just friendly.

“What about me?” he asks.

“Just, you. You’re good, you know that? Full.”

“I don’t feel so full. I feel like paper mache.”

Soonyoung has to wait through a moment’s hesitation before Jihoon’s words hit him, and he can hardly hear them, they’re spoken so quietly - “Well, you make me happy, anyway.”

Soonyoung’s ribcage is splintering, turning rough with the way his feelings have started to claw at it. They’re trapped and they want out, but he’d rather keep them in. He’d rather admire Jihoon like this, without the filler of some confession; the distance leaves him aching, but it’s also safe.

So they’ve _got_ to stay in, even if it tears him apart inside.

“And I do - I do think you are. Full, I mean. Even if you don’t realize it.” Soonyoung’s watching Jihoon steadily, focused like he’s analyzing a paper, and not one detail can escape his attention - a quick brush of his tongue over his lower lip, the way his pupils seem to shake in the rearview mirror. His knuckles turning white against the steering wheel.

“You aren’t hollow, Soonyoung. You - Your core is like, warm, and it’s wonderful and it fills you up entirely. I can _feel_ it,” he gives Soonyoung’s pinky a squeeze. “I can feel it, and it’s not paper mache, it’s just you.”

Splintering turns to full on damage, shattered bones and a heart barely held in what remains of its cage. Soonyoung is in ruins, his heartbeat obliterated for the hundredth time that week.

Sometimes, he’s okay, and it’s just feelings, just smothered dreams and hopes he refuses to raise - but other times, on particularly vulnerable nights like tonight, it’s anything but. Jihoon makes him feel like Rome lit on fire. Jihoon makes it really hard to keep the distance.

“What about love notes?” he asks later, when they’re standing in the aisle of a convenience store. Jihoon’s stretching his whole body to reach something on the top shelf. Soonyoung knocks it over for him, and he huffs.

“What about them?”

“Any thoughts?”

“I’ve never written one.”

“Would you?”

Jihoon seems to think about this, eyes turned upwards and his head tilted to one side. “I don’t know. Depends on the person, I guess.”

Soonyoung had considered it, once or twice. He’s never actually tried, though.

“What - What about the person?” he asks, and he nearly chokes in the middle of it. Jihoon doesn’t even look at him, and that alone is enough to make Soonyoung feel jittery. It’s like his nerves are wires, and they’re all being cut one by one.

“Like … I don’t know. I’ve never considered writing love notes for you, Soonyoung. It never seemed necessary, with the way we are.”

Rome’s no longer burning, it’s only left in ashes, and Soonyoung’s voice is barely above a breath when he says, “I wish you wouldn’t say these things.”

“Yeah. I wish I wouldn’t, either.”

Soonyoung can’t remember it, the shift between friends and something a little more. He remembers pining, a stuttering heartbeat for every gaze met and a constant flurry of nerves, he remembers thinking of Jihoon in a way he never had before; but he can’t remember when that became a two-way thing.

What he knows, though, is that it’s hard to not be scared when someone else has your heart in their hands.

“I only wanted to see you,” he says, and now they’re standing in the parking lot. Jihoon’s got his hand on the door handle, but Soonyoung hasn’t even glanced at the vehicle. “I just wanted to see you, because I like seeing you. Because I’m crazy about you, can you tell?” Jihoon nods.

“You’re not exactly subtle, Soonyoung.”

“Right, well. That wasn’t supposed to go anywhere. You weren’t supposed to feel the same, I was - I was going to cut it out, I was going to get over it, and you were never going to know. This was supposed to be a _me_ thing, not an _us_ thing.”

Jihoon sounds rough, syllables coming out all bent from being choked on. “It is, though. I’m sorry.”

Soonyoung feels undone, like a spool of thread that’s been unraveled completely. Like loose and uncontained, and vulnerable. Jihoon could cut him up with scissors if he wanted to.

“Where did we start, Soonyoung?.”

“My backyard,” he supplies. “But then you said you were hungry. You drove us all the way out here for food, and now you’re going to have to drive us back, and we’re both going to have to endure that.”

“I guess we will.”

Soonyoung wishes he could be more trusting. If he was, maybe Jihoon wouldn’t have both hands on the wheel, this time. If he was, maybe he could be a little happier. Jihoon isn't doing anything to convince him of it, though, and Soonyoung wishes he would. The whole drive is silent.

Silent, until they reach Soonyoung’s driveway. It’s nearly morning by then and Soonyoung can still make out the flush on Jihoon’s cheeks, and it’s the latter who speaks up.

“For what it’s worth, I’m also crazy about you. Not sure what good it does to tell you this now, but, well. There you go. It’s been like that for months now and I can’t get rid of it.”

“Do you _want_ to get rid of it?”

Jihoon quirks a brow at him. “Don’t you?”

Soonyoung’s got tears all over his heart, soft flesh ripped gently by the night, his own uncertainty. Maybe Jihoon isn’t the only one breaking him apart, maybe he’s doing it to himself, too. He’ll say it out loud, if only to offer the boy some consolation.

“I don’t know what you’re so unsure of,” he says. “Would I ever hurt you, Soonyoung?”

“Anyone could.”

“You think I’d do that to you?”

Soonyoung wants to say no, he knows that’s the best answer, but he can’t. It’s just not the truth.

“It’s not that I doubt you,” Soonyoung says. “It’s just, me. You’re wonderful, Jihoon, and I’m just me. It would only be natural for me to end up hurt - things wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t.”

“You deserve good things, Soonyoung, why can’t you believe that?”

The sky is tinting pink, and the moon’s still out. It’s a vanilla type of morning, fresh and comforting and terribly different to the atmosphere inside the car. Soonyoung rolls down a window.

“What’s a good thing?”

“A good thing could be like - like me, maybe? If that isn’t too much to hope for?” He sounds so wishful when he says it, Soonyoung can’t help melting a little, despite the last few hours. “Like maybe I could kiss you, and it would be nice, and that would be okay, right? Because you deserve nice things.”

Soonyoung wants to cry.

“If you would just give me the chance to show you,” Jihoon finishes.

It’s quiet for a long while, neither one of them offering up anything to break the whitenoise that is Jihoon’s engine and the breeze outside.

Soonyoung’s averse to his own happiness, constantly denied himself of it. But here’s Jihoon, heart on his sleeve and so raw, so completely vulnerable and exposed beside him. Jihoon, who’s always hated putting himself in a position of weakness. But he’s willing, now; for Soonyoung, he’s done it.

Soonyoung’s not sure he has the heart to let him down - and maybe, for once, he’ll indulge himself.

“You really think all that?” he asks, and Jihoon swallows.

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking it for a pretty long time, actually.”

Soonyoung’s turned his body in Jihoon’s direction, head resting against the seat; Jihoon, meanwhile, looks as tense as ever, and Soonyoung finds it in himself to reach out and hold his hand. He rubs his knuckles, massages the skin on his palm in some effort to ease away the tension, and he says, “Now’s your chance, Jihoonie.”

Jihoon’s breath seems to hitch, and it’s then that they finally lock eyes.

It takes a few seconds, barely even that, for the distance to close between them.

Jihoon’s lips are warm, warm like his hands on Soonyoung’s neck, and in that short second before Soonyoung closes his eyes and melts into him completely, he can see the boy blushing right down to the tip of his nose. It’s careful and soft. It’s gentle and it seems to say _here, this is okay, Soonyoung, you can have this._

It feels sweet and tastes sweeter, and Jihoon’s eyes look like they’re sparkling when they pull apart.

“Can you still feel your feet on the ground?” he asks, a little short of breath, and just the smallest of smiles manages to make its way across Soonyoung’s face.

“Yeah,” he says. “Solid.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading !!! my twitter is @cheniuvrs if u ever wanna talk :') <3<3<3


End file.
